Connection
by flowerpicture
Summary: Stendan fluff.


**AN: Pointless fluff. No plot! Who needs plot anyway.**

::: :::

You first see him at your sister's wedding. He helped cater the event but Cheryl got to know him well enough to invite him as a guest. He's dancing when you first notice him, throwing himself around with a huge grin on his face because he looks stupid, and he knows he looks stupid, and he's loving every minute of it.

You're sat in your seat at the table and you watch him for one song, two songs, and then he glances over and notices. His moves falter, briefly, barely an instant, and he licks his lips. Then he smiles at you, his eyes twinkling in the strobe lights, and then he's dancing again, lost in the crowd.

You see him again later in the evening. He's standing in the doorway talking to one of Cheryl's friends and you pass him by on your way out. He pauses his conversation momentarily and you share a smile with him, secretive and without words, and as you step out front and into the night, you glance behind to find him still watching you.

::: :::

You meet him properly at Cheryl's birthday party three months later. He's alone in the kitchen pouring himself a cup of punch and you join him, silent but for the music filtering through the wall. "Hiya," he says with a bit of a self-aware smirk and you get in his space to reach for a cup, look down into his eyes, watch him bite his bottom lip.

"You wanna get dinner?" you say to him, quiet and low, cup in hand and still in his space and his eyes shining up at you.

He hesitates before responding. "I don't even know your name."

"Brendan," you say. "Brady."

It's like the smile pushes onto his face without his permission and you watch as he tries to smother it.

"Okay."

::: :::

A week later you meet him at a restaurant. He's already seated and waiting and it's quiet at first, perusing the menus and ordering wine, but not exactly awkward. His face is all sharp angles and soft beauty in the candlelight and it takes your breath away, a little bit, this face.

"So," he says, after the wine's poured and he's taken a sip. "You never asked my name."

You smile. "I know your name. I asked Cheryl about you."

"When?"

"A while ago."

"Before the party?" he asks, quirking an eyebrow.

"Yeah."

"Did you know I was gonna be there?"

"Yes."

He pauses, and his eyes are narrowed, and you feel like you're on trial. It's exciting.

"So you planned this.

"Is that a problem?" You're not going to deny it.

He shrugs, but you can tell he's trying not to smile. "Just figuring out if I was just some random guy at a party you wanted to sleep with."

"You were definitely the guy at a party I want to sleep with," you say, partly because you want to watch his eyes light up, but mostly because it's the truth. "But you weren't random."

There's a hint of a smirk on his face as his lips close over the edge of his wine glass, and his leg presses against yours under the table.

Your heart beats a little faster all through dinner.

::: :::

You sleep with him that night. You get the feeling it's not his policy to have sex on the first date but he's leading things; he's declining dessert to get out of the restaurant quicker, he's pulling you into an alley to kiss you in the shadows, he's pressing his body close and rolling his hips forward and groaning when your hand skims over his backside and down to his thigh, pulling it up around your hip to tug him closer.

He asks you back to his and there's nothing in you that wants to refuse.

You suck his cock in the glow of lamplight in his bedroom and then lift his legs onto your shoulders so you can press into his body. He's vocal, and he burns up, and when he comes it makes your heart leap into your throat.

You're meant to leave soon after; it's how you do things. But you don't. You fuck him again, and then you lie there talking about work, and Cheryl, and the fucking weather. And none of it's boring; he makes you laugh, and he makes you talk, and suddenly it's three in the morning and you're too tired and he's draped over you, head on your chest, listening to the rumble of your voice.

"Sleep here," he says, casual as anything, like he's read your mind.

You say, "Okay," and card your fingers through his hair, and when you wake up it's nearly lunchtime and he doesn't care about your morning breath as he kisses you good morning.

::: :::

You see him next for lunch later in the week; there's no plan for this meeting, nothing but his text and your response and then casual conversation over toasted sandwiches. He tells you a little about his past, about his family, that he has children. Every word he says has him watching your face for a reaction, as though he thinks you're going to get up and walk out. You wonder how many people have considered his baggage too complicated to be worth the effort.

His eyes have softened when it comes time to pay the bill and you're still sitting there, listening. You let him pay, and this time it doesn't end with sex. But you do kiss him before you go, out in the car park by the side of your car.

::: :::

You're dating him. You've never dated anyone.

You've gone on dozens of first dates as a prelude to sex but you've never made it to a second date, or a third, or even a morning after.

Your seventh date with him is to the cinema, and then for ice cream, and then a slow walk back to his because it's a nice evening, and he likes to walk.

His hand skims yours as he's talking random nonsense and you don't take it, you don't hold his hand, but part of you thinks it wouldn't be so bad and that's when you realise you're half of a couple now.

When he asks you what's so funny, you stop him in the middle of the street and respond with a kiss.

::: :::

Your weekends are spent with him now, in between work. You wake up beside him, and you go to bed beside him, and in the middle you watch TV together, or you go out and do things, or you do your paperwork at his kitchen table while he cooks and brings things over for you to taste. You spend two long weekends helping him repaint his flat, and then another letting him totally rearrange your kitchen, and one weekend you fall out over something stupid and don't see him until Sunday evening, when your resolve weakens and you end up at his door and he fucks you right there in the hallway.

You meet his kids. You don't mean to; there was no plan. But one lazy Sunday afternoon while you're lounging together on his sofa, there's a knock on his door and in walks a young blonde lady and two children.

He introduces her as Amy, and his children as Leah and Lucas, and everything's a bit awkward and strained until you offer to make tea and go into the kitchen. He follows you in there five minutes later and says, "I didn't know they were visiting today."

You smile at him, pour milk into a little jug, put everything on a tray.

"You can leave if you want," he says. "I don't mind."

You think about it, and then you tip some biscuits onto a plate.

"It's fine," you tell him. "I want to stay."

His smile, when you look at him, is breathtaking.

::: :::

Sex with him is always good. It startles you, when you stop to think about it, that you've never had a bad experience with him in bed. Or on the sofa. The kitchen, floor, shower.

You read, once, that sex becomes routine in relationships, that the honeymoon period wears off and sex just becomes something you do as a couple, like a chore.

You've been together four months, and you're pretty sure the honeymoon period wore off the first time his belongings strewn all over your apartment had you snapping and leading into a blazing row, but the sex hasn't ever dampened. It gets better, even, as you learn more about each other, your bodies and your responses, as you become more and more comfortable around each other, comfortable enough to ask for what you want.

The first time he fingers you open and goes in against your prostate with a small, vibrating dildo, there are no internal restraints stopping you from roaring out your orgasm, no embarrassment, nothing but pure pleasure and the instant desire to flip him over and stuff your tongue deep into his hole.

He comes on your face that night, and you're the one who ends up asking for more.

::: :::

You have to go away for a week in November and you want to ask him to come with you, but you don't. Instead you call him every night, and you feel pathetic for doing so, and even phone sex isn't enough to alleviate the weird, hollow pressure in your gut every time you have to say goodbye.

"It's normal to miss your boyfriend, you know," he says to you one night, and you might have been together for a while now, but it's the first time either of you has put a label on it, given a name to what you are to each other.

He says it like it's nothing. You've thought it, of course, in your own head—you're together now; he's your partner. But it's not a word you've ever considered saying out loud, and you had no idea how you would react when hearing it.

Your reaction is nothing. Your tummy flips, but the walls of this hotel room don't cave in; the bed beneath you doesn't fall away and the ground open up to swallow you.

He says he's your boyfriend. It's the truth, and it's okay.

"I know," you say, because you're not going to deny he's your boyfriend now, and you're not going to deny that you miss him.

::: :::

His Christmas present to you is a set of cufflinks with your initials engraved into them.

Your Christmas present to him is an envelope containing tickets for a weekend in Paris in the New Year. He's delighted, and he kisses you in the middle of the kitchen, and he blows you against the fridge, and then you go with him to take presents to his children.

Amy's not quite sure about you, but she's pleasant enough, and you drink a glass of wine with her while you both watch him roll around on the floor with the kids.

That night you take him to your sister's for dinner. She knows you've been seeing him, but it's the first time you've attended any kind of family gathering with him as your partner. You're nervous at first, but you're the only one who seems to think it's any kind of big deal, and no one pays you any attention when he catches you under some mistletoe and plants a kiss on your mouth before you have time to object.

His cheeks are rosy with alcohol and Christmas spirit and instinct has you leaning forward and kissing him again.

::: :::

On New Year's Eve, as the clock ticks to midnight, while you're in a pub surrounded by inebriated idiots screaming their lungs dry, he pulls back from the kiss and tells you he loves you.

Your breath seizes in your throat, and he's watching your face, and there's a moment where doubt creeps into his eyes and he looks away. It makes your heart skip a beat, desperation and terror coursing through your veins, and you press your finger beneath his chin to tilt his face up to look at you.

"I love you too," you say, and the words are cracked, barely there at all, and they send your mind spinning with panic.

But you mean them. You mean them with your whole heart.

You make love that night. It's the slowest, most tender sex you've ever had with him, and when it's over you clutch him to you and breathe into his neck and you want to say it again, the desire to tell him welling up in your chest and pushing through your throat, so you do, just a whisper, and this time there's no panic.

He gives you a bit of a shove, and he's laughing sleepily, and he's telling you not to start going soft on him now. But his eyes are shining when you look at him, and you think this is it, this is the face you're going to look at for the rest of your life, this is the body you're going to spend every day holding and touching and the skin you're going to press all your pleasure into.

You kiss him, and you think about how you're going to ask him to move in, and you think about your future.

::: :::


End file.
